Stan is right about most .410 courses being well covered with 1/2 ounce loads with any chokes worth using. I just shoot my 42's with full choke for everything and do not feel the least bit handicapped. I also use the same guns for the regular big bore course and do find that some of those targets stretch my range more than it would with a 12, but just a couple pellets will do the job and a chipped clay target does not fly off to suffer so I am happy to stretch my ability with a .410. Before you know it you will be breaking birds at 35 to almost 40 yards fairly consistently. The best thing about clay targets is they fly the same route every time, so you can learn from and correct your mistakes. Start breaking a bird at 25, then 30, then 35 yards will teach you a lot about shooting a small bore. Done in changes of two to three yards you can quickly learn as you go.

28 and .410 are great shells to reload and save a lot of money. I shoot a lot of .410 and have a Spolar reloading machine which cranks them out just a nice as factory shells for about $4.50/25 for .410 $5.20/25 for 28 gauge. I load 12 mostly to have all the varieties of shot and payload/pressure that I need but small gauge save me so much money that my machine has paid for itself many time over. Plus when loading .410 I know that I get 800 loads out of a single bag of shot. That makes the .410 my gas sipping, economy gun, that is fun to shoot and kills just about everything.